


bittersweet

by TheEagleGirl



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sort of Canon Compliant?, it's based on GRRM's original idea, where Arya goes to the Wall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 18:10:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13013334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEagleGirl/pseuds/TheEagleGirl
Summary: The first time he notices the heat between them, they are surrounded by her mother, King Stannis and a half-dozen advisors and men of the watch.





	bittersweet

The first time he notices the heat between them, they are surrounded by her mother, King Stannis and a half-dozen advisors and men of the watch. Arya has been at the Wall for nearly a fortnight, and Jon cannot pretend he’s not delighted in seeing his little sister after so many years apart, to feel her whole and intact in his arms. He and Arya have always been close, have been since he’d first peeked over the side of her crib to see a squirming mass with dark hair and grey eyes like his. But he’d never felt  _this_  before. Perhaps he’d been too young to understand, then. Perhaps he’d been this depraved all along and didn’t even know it.

He is seated next to her, that first time. Stannis and Lady Catelyn are hammering out details of the North’s fealty to him, and the word “marriage” has emerged for the first time. Arya’s jaw is clenched so hard that Jon has to wonder if her teeth hurt. But she says nothing.

“I am your rightful king,” Stannis says, voice cold. “Your daughter is the last living Stark not under the Lannister thumb. She will be married to a loyal bannerman of mine before we march on Winterfell.”

The indignant anger boiling in Jon’s chest is nearly enough to make him spill over. Arya is his sister. The last Stark he  _knows_  is alive. She should not have to be sold off to Stannis’s lords in exchange for return to Winterfell.

Arya seems to sense his anger, and under the table, her hand finds his. The voices fade away—Lady Catelyn’s cold stare, the king’s insistence, the bite of cold in the air. And the heat blooms.

That’s all it takes. The spark from that touch lit a fire in him, and he’s not yet been able to put it out.

* * *

She kept the sword.

 _Needle,_  they’d called it.  _Don’t tell Sansa!_  Jon can, if he closes his eyes, still see the delight in Arya’s eyes when he’d presented it to her, the sound of her laughter. She’s right here, he knows. If he opened the door to his solar at night, she’d be just down the corridor. He does not have to conjure up the image of his little sister because she is  _here_. Still he does it. To remind himself of how she was. The child she was, not the young woman before him now, standing with her sword in hand and determination in her eyes. He must  _remember_  who they are.

“I’m fast,” she insists, twirling the sword nimbly between her fingers. “I won’t beat down a knight or a White Walker, but I’ve poked a man or two full of holes. Stuck them with the pointy end,” she says, a wry smile on her lips. “Father got me a dancing master from Braavos, back in King’s Landing. He taught me how to fight.”

“I thought you’d lose it.” Jon can see she’s practiced. Her stance is odd, and Jon would never twirl a blade as she does now, but there’s a balance to her movements, a deadly grace in the way she moves. The breeches Satin had given her are large and baggy over her legs—there were hardly many dresses laying around the Wall—but she moves unhindered by them. “Why have you waited so long to show me this?” Jon asks, his throat dry. He tries to clear it subtly, but Arya’s eyes are on his face, watching.

Without warning, Arya lunges forward, the sword flashing in the air. She brings it down a foot away from him, steps into a spin, and before Jon can blink, Needle’s thin blade rests on his shoulder, almost soft.

“My mother didn’t approve at first,” Arya says, towering over him in his seated position. Jon isn’t afraid, he can see the glimmer of playfulness in her eyes. He knows those eyes better than anyone else’s.

“Why not? Because ladies shouldn’t wield swords?”

Arya scoffs. “I don’t feel like a lady. Even here, your men look at me like a piece of meat, not the Lady of Winterfell.”

Jon wants to ask who’s looked at her, wants to go bloody a few of his black brothers so they never set eyes on his sister again.

 _You have no sister_ , he tries to tell himself.  _Not anymore. You’re a man of the Watch_.

Arya steps back, sheathes the thin blade and sets it on Jon’s desk. “I’ll protect myself,” she tells him. “That’s why I’m showing you Needle now. I’ll protect myself if I need to.”

“Against your husband?” Jon asks, fighting to keep his voice neutral.

“Whoever Stannis picks,” Arya says forcefully. “I’ll marry if he makes me, but I will not be some docile lady. Winterfell belongs to  _me._  To the Starks. Not some pompous Southron lord who’s kissed Stannis’s arse so many times he got stuck up there.”

Despite himself, Jon laughs through his shock.

“I wouldn’t ever imagine you’d go quietly,” he says, smiling up at her. “You’re too strong-willed for that, little sister.”

“Not so long ago, I’d have run away. It’s what I did when Robb told me I’d have to marry a Frey. I ran away, and I was only found hours later. After the Red Wedding was over, of course, and Robb was dead.” Arya chews at her lip before looking away. “Jon,” she starts, bravado gone. “I want to go home. I just—” she trails off. When she speaks again, her voice shakes, “Is it even home anymore? Was it Winterfell that made me feel so safe, or was it the people within? Old Nan, Hodor, Jory. Sansa. Bran and Rickon. Robb,” her voice cracks on their brother’s name. “Father. You. What if I go back to Winterfell and it’s  _cold_ , Jon? What if I’m not strong there?”

Jon finds her hand without meaning to. “You are a Stark,” he tells her. “You have the blood of the First Men, same as our father and his father and his father, all hard men of Winterfell, some even the Kings of Winter. The cold means nothing to a Stark, Arya. You are stronger in Winterfell. The whole of the North is stronger with a Stark within its walls.”

“But I won’t be a Stark, will I?” Arya whispers, clutching his fingers. “I’ll be a Florent or a Fossoway or whatever Stannis wishes for me to be. How will I keep Winterfell then?”

This is the closest Jon has allowed himself to be with Arya since that night. Jon has had some time to get used to the way she is now, after all their years apart, but perhaps that is the problem. He’s too used to this, the thing between them that has existed for years, before he even knew how to name it. Before he even knew it was wrong.

“Winterfell is yours,” Jon tells her firmly. “It belongs to the Starks. You will always be a Stark, no matter what Stannis’s god says.”

“He wants to burn down the weirwood,” she mumbles, her eyes shut. Her hand is cold in his, fingers gripping his tightly.

“I know,” Jon whispers.

“Jon,” Arya breathes, and her hand touches his face. “Oh, Jon. What do I do?”

“You marry,” Jon says, hating every word that comes out of his mouth. “And you march on Winterfell. You get our home back.”

“Our home,” she echoes, tracing her finger down his cheek. “I thought the Wall was your home now.”

Jon clenches his jaw. “It is,” he says. It always would be.  _Take no wives. Father no children._  The next words come out in a rush of emotion, though Jon does not plan to say them. “A part of me is always with you. That is home, Arya.”

Arya’s eyes are unreadable when he looks up. “I thought about you every day,” she says, and her words rip him apart. He must send her away,  _now_. Before this escalates, before he cannot stop himself. But Jon does not move. “Every day, when I was traveling to Robb’s army. I wished for wings so I could fly here, to you. I knew you would want me, even though I’ve done-I’ve done awful things. But you would still love me.”

“Always,” Jon says, before he can stop himself.

Arya’s eyes flutter shut for a moment, and her chest rises and falls rapidly.

“I have to leave you,” she tells him. “Soon. Stannis wants to march on Winterfell within the moon. I’ll be married before then.”

“I know,” Jon says, and his heart wrenches in two.

When Arya kisses him, it is with soft, unpracticed lips. The kiss is no more than a press of lips, skin against skin, until Jon exhales heavily and pulls Arya onto his lap.

“Gods,” Arya moans between kisses, her fingers splayed at his chest, “Jon, I could never—there was never anyone who’s ever made me feel…”

But she can’t finish. With a muffled groan, she arches against him, against his lips on her neck. He knows she can feel him, hard underneath her, and for a moment his cheeks burn. Arya is his  _sister_.

“Arya,” he tries. “Arya, we can’t.”

Even as he says it, though, his fingers dig into the soft skin of her hips where her tunic—also borrowed—has ridden up. Arya moans against his temple, moving against him. He knows the frustration she feels. Ygritte would often move the same way against his body, except she knew how to satisfy this sort of frustration, would reach into Jon’s trousers and pull him inside her.

“You won’t let the first man I kiss be some fanatic for the Lord of Light, will you?” Arya pants, breath hot against his ear. “If I have to leave you forever, Jon, I don’t want to leave without feeling you. Without showing you how I feel.”

“I can— _ngh_ —father no children,” Jon grits out, bucking up involuntarily. “I am a man of the Watch, Arya. I can’t—”

“We don’t have to have children,” Arya huffs. “Gods, Jon.”

For a moment, everything lightens between them. It’s the tone Arya used to use with Sansa, and ridiculously, Jon laughs.

“Alright,” he breathes. “May I?” His fingers play with the strings of her breeches.

“If you don’t,” Arya says, “I’ll run you through.”

Arya is warm and wet and slippery and  _perfect_. She pants against Jon’s mouth when he slides his fingers over her cunt, starts to circle.

“I love you,” he tells her, when she starts to move against his hand. Gods, he wants to memorize everything about her. The little involuntary noise from her throat when he presses just so, the hitch in her breath, the shine of the fire off her skin.

“I love you,” she moans, hands clutching at his shoulders. “Jon—I—oh, I can’t—”

She comes with a shudder, then sags against him. Jon is still achingly hard, but he makes no move to fix that, simply holds her against him. He’s filled with doubt, but for now he sets that aside. There will be room for doubt later, once she’s left. Later, he will feel the full impact of what he’s done. Until then, he holds his sister to his chest and breathes her in.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can follow me @visenyastargaryen on tumblr. 
> 
> Please leave a comment/review! They make my day :)


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